Friday, April 3, 2009

My Man Tricky Of His Real Dream For Me


Dear Agatha,

I am one of your regular readers and I need your help. In the last two years, I have been dating this boy in his second year running Higher National Diploma (HND) programme. We are both in love.

However, I can’t stop being anxious over the relationship because of the way my previous relationship broke up. I am fearful of having another experience like that.

Although we have talked about the possibility of us getting married if it is the will of God but other men are coming for my hand. Once I demand to know his explicit plans for me but he simply told me he loves me but that, if others are coming my way I shouldn’t stop them but not to give any man my body in a hurry.

Please help me what should I do to make him confess his plans for me? Presently, there is no problem between us, but I am confused. Much as I don’t want to rush him into anything, I don’t know anybody in his family because they all live in Ibadan, not in Kaduna. Please help me.

Angel.


Dear Angel,

You are simply being paranoid. If you continue this way, you risk losing this man not to another woman but to your own fears.

What else do you want him to tell you? Tell you that he would marry you today when he has given the wisest and most realistic assurances in the world? What if he tells you he would and God says no to his desire to marry you? What will you do? Fight or pressurise God into accepting your ways over His wisdom and good thoughts for you?
If you were wise, you would turn your attention to God and not this man who has made it obvious that God is his ultimate source of strength. All he knows is what he feels for you now and that what he has offered you, his love as it currently stands.

You have a choice to either accept his honest response to your question or give him freedom to concentrate on his studies. Sincerely, he doesn’t need your type of pressures now. As his woman, you should ensure he has the right atmosphere to succeed.

Putting these pressures on him might affect his level of concentration on his study.

It is wrong for you to transfer the anxieties of your previous relationships to your current relationship with this man. He isn’t the one that hurt you, so it’s very unfair of you to make him suffer for an offence or incident he knows nothing about.

Whatever may have been the challenge of your previous experiences; you must learn how to trust again, love without fear and conditions. To do that is to elongate your disappointments because it would get to a point where this man would no longer feel the need to defend his love for you.

Once you push him to that limit with your constant naggings, nothing you say would make the right impression on him again. So beware you don’t, through your own insecurities, cause more pains for yourself.

He sounds like an honest reasonable young man. Don’t allow your fears make you lose him because this is one loss you may find impossible to replace.

Like Him, commit the relationship to God because He is the only one who has our lives right in the palms of His hands. With Him in charge, you have nothing to fear again about your life. Trust me, He is very sufficient.

Good luck

My Girl Double-dates Right Under My Nose


Dear Agatha,

Being a regular reader of your column I am always impressed at the way you handle issues.

I am 27 years dating a girl, 21. She works as a maidservant in our house. We have been dating for two years now and sincerely; I still don’t know where the relationship is heading, due to the disturbing presence of a boy, who lives with us. He served my father and has since been settled by him but decided to stay on with us until he gets a place of his own.

Although he claims to be a staunch Christian, a born-again, he engages in practices, which to me make nonsense of his claims as born-again.

I have noticed the closeness between him and my girlfriend. He is in the habit of buying her gifts as well as money. He also buys her edibles.

All these started after she accepted to date me. I help her with her academics and also give her money from the little income I earn where I work.

I also made her a promise settle down with her and sponsor her tertiary education once I am able to get a better job, which I know would come very soon.

She surprised me on Valentine’s Day with a gift of a love frame but my joy was taken away when I noticed she equally bought a flower and kept for the boy who wasn’t around at the time.

She didn’t know I saw the flower because I refused to discuss the issue with her directly. In response to my leading questions she explained that our environment wasn’t conducive for her to concentrate attention on me just as her schoolwork was also taking much her time.

I am confused and need your advice.

Saviola.


Dear Saviola,

Confront her with the evidences of what you have seen and noticed. Being a house-help in your home, which deprives her of the opportunity to be with you is not the issue, but sincerity on her part.

Relationship is about loyalty and this comes from faithfulness to your partner. She cannot be in a relationship with you and be accepting gifts from another man or buying gifts for another man. It is either she is wholeheartedly in this relationship with you or out of it. There are no middle grounds in love and relationship.

At 21, she isn’t exactly a spring chicken not to know what is expected of someone who is in love or has given his commitment to another person. Her obligations to you include giving up all other persons and inducements to enable her concentrate on this relationship with you.

You will be stupid and highly embarrassed if at the end of the day, she is not only simultaneously dating you and the other boy but would leave you after you have trained her to be with the man of her choice.

Doubtless, you must love her to have risked the opinions of your parents to date her. But her love for you must be worth this important sacrifice you are making.

Therefore you must urgently call her to extract from her, her true feelings towards you. In your own interest, demand she tells you precisely what she feels for you as well as the other man. To get the truth from her, tell her about your confusions at her continued closeness with the other man. Let her know that you are not preventing her from being friendly with the other man but are worried about the seemingly depth of their relationship.

Go over again for the purpose of your discussion with her, your plans for her as well as what you expect from a woman you are having a relationship with. Also tell her about your fears, confusions as well as anxieties.

In addition, do you have the boldness to go through with it? Can you withstand the initial mockery, snobbishness as well as attempts at superiority of friends and other girlfriends if they find out your relationship with her? It is one thing to conduct secret relationship with her, making it public takes another kind of feeling, another kind of commitment as well as dispositions. You may not have thought about this but she may have done so which could be why she is still keeping her closeness to this other boy incase you grow cold feet when the avalanche of opposition threatens to drown you.

It is also important you listen to her because in fairness to her, your position as the son of the owner of the house may be her real source of worry and reason she prefers the other boy whom she considers more her type. Given the experiences of others before her, she may think your offer for a relationship with her is motivated principally by your desire to have sex with her and nothing more.

If this is her hidden fear, then the issue between the two of you is that of lack of sufficient trust. Frankly, it would take more than promises of sponsoring her through university to resolve.

It would entail you taking some risks of your own like moving away from the comfort of your parents’ home. In all fairness to her, there is no way this relationship can work with you staying in your parents’ home. Don’t forget she works, as a maid there, and there is no way your parents would ever willingly give their support to such an arrangement.

Whereas, this other boy is free to associate with her in the open, your social classes occasioned by the situation in your home makes your relationship with her somehow forbidden.

Your talk with her must boldly address this inherent issue in such a way it would clearly address all her obvious and hidden fears as well as set out a plan for the future.

The other boy may not really be the problem as much as your unwillingness to make sacrifices for the love your claim to have for her. Yes, it is all right to help her with her school work, give her some pocket money but you must address and act on the issues that would give her confidence to give up every other dream to follow you.

This is however premised on how much you want her and your real interest in her. If your real interest in her is to marry her, you must begin to act as one to be trusted, one she can follow with a blind-fold, a fearless and determined man.

A woman in her position needs more than the assurances of mere words. In addition to promises, she needs physical evidences that she isn’t going with the wrong man. After serving as house-help in the early years of her life, she needs all the assurances that a better life awaits her and that she has the right man by her side.

Like you, she is confused about the reality of this relationship.

For your sakes, you must honestly address all outstanding issues including that of her unusual closeness to the other boy.

God will grant you the wisdom to be truthful to yourselves as well as give you the guts to carry this relationship forward.

Good luck.